


Comes marching home

by MelodyGarnet



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 04:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3796615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyGarnet/pseuds/MelodyGarnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eggsy, the boy says and the world falls away. How strange, you think, that some boy came up with the same ridiculous nickname as the man you loved in another life."</p>
<p>No-one could ever guess that in Harry Hart, there live on the memories of a Great War general who was unable to deal with losing his lover to the battlefield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comes marching home

Eggsy, the boy says and the world falls away. How strange, you think, that some boy came up with the same ridiculous nickname as the man you loved in another life. You feel so far away, so distant as you tell him to keep the medal close. You go home then.

You go to your bedroom and sit down on your bed. You sit there, not-thinking, until you open the bedside table on a whim. You take out the photo, the letters. You watch, you read. You have no picture of his Eggsy, only of a man from another time, a war general, the him that you are now.

You have always known, that there was another life, before. That there was love and loss and endless grief, that there were uniforms and mud and bullets. That there was a bullet that took away an eye for him. That there was mustard gas that took away a life for his Eggsy.

You remember how the general cried when he realised he was forgetting what his Eggsy looked like, how he felt to the touch, how he tasted, how he sounded. You remember how the man you once were thought he couldn’t bear forgetting and choked himself on a noose like his lover did on poisoned air.

He thought he couldn’t bear to lose his love twice. Joke’s on him, you think, because here I am and here he is. Here we are. Forced to live twice, to have to split your memories in you and him. To end up even further from his lover than he thought he could ever be.

This is his life: birth, youth, love, war, gas, grief, noose, death.

This is your life: rebirth, youth again, soldier once more, spy, guilt.

The thought of guilt brings you once again on the life you owe to the father of a different Eggsy. You place the brittle old letters back in your bedside table, you put away the century-old picture. You lie down in bed and think about Afganistan. How did you miss it, you think.

With that question you are the spy again, and put away the general.

 

He’s devised a new exercise, Merlin announces, for the Lancelot recruits. They need to follow orders, whatever happens. You approve until Merlin mentions gas.

The general in you sees no spies. He hears soldiers screaming in panic. He sees a green sea of chlorine gas and men who were too slow with their gas helmets flailing around as if they were on fire.

The grieving lover in you sees no spies. He hears his neighbour, Eggsy’s mother, cry when she tells him that her son died of mustard gas. He sees a white cross. He smells a graveyard.

You try to dissuade Merlin from going through with the exercise. You fail.

Neither him nor you can sleep. You cannot stand the thought of locking someone in a room, of making them choke on gas, of forcing them to stay calm until they fall unconscious just to see if they can follow the order to wait until the cavalry arrives.

You bear witness anyway and you are so proud. Your Eggsy is patient and follows the order without a problem, though he behaves strange near the end.

He shuts his eyes and opens them very deliberately. He grabs his throat, or lays his hands on his chest, then breathes deeply. When he moves his arms or legs away from his body, it surprises him as if he thought he was strapped down. He handles things as if he has blisters. When he talks, he whispers. When he touches his cheek, he rubs his fingers together as if checking them for moisture.

 

You wake up from a coma that lasted the better part of a year. Your eye is stolen by a bullet, again, but you see clearer than you ever did.

You remember. You _remember_.

His voice, his laugh, his song. His smile, his eyes, his form. His kiss, his touch, his skin. Eggsy, Eggsy, Eggsy! His and yours are one and the same and you remember. You remember.

You separated yourself from the general to save yourself from his grief. Now you let him in. You’re Harry now; you’re _all_ Harry now.

 

The first time you are home and completely independent, you go to your bedside table and take out the letters and the photo. You look at all the evidence you hid from the world so no-one knew there was once an old man called Harry and a young man called Eggsy and they were lovers.

You sit down on your bed and read the letters again for the first time in 73 years.

You are reading when Eggsy rings the doorbell. You take the letter you have been reading with you. It’s Eggsy’s last letter, his very last- dated December 1917, it is brittle with age, and tear-stained. Some parts would have been unreadable were it not that you know it by heart.

When you open the door, Eggsy takes one look at your face and shoulders his way inside. He touches your cheek and his fingers come away wet. He demands an explanation; you smile and hand over the letter. He takes it and his eyes fly over the page. They slow down. They stop.

He looks at you with eyes you’d forgotten were so beautiful. Harry, he asks, and his voice is like the first bird call after the battle has ended. Fearful and hopeful, he’s trembling so much, you fear he might break.

Your hands cup his cheeks, and you can’t help your thumb swiping away silent tears. His hands grab your wrists forcefully, but you do not care if they bruise. 

Harry, he asks again. He wants to know for sure, you realize. You kiss his forehead and bury your nose in his hair.

My sunlight, you breathe out and Eggsy lets go of your wrists only to attack your mouth.

You only break away to lay your lips on his cheeks, to kiss away his happy tears. Eggsy, you sigh, my Eggsy. He is home. Your soldier is finally home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Chlorine gas may have been horrible, but an attack was survivable as long as you had on your gas helmet.  
> That's why I made Harry a witness to one of these attacks. He was at the front too, but could have easily survived without major damage.
> 
> Mustard gas was far worse. It took weeks to kill a soldier. They would get large, yellow-green blisters all over (especially under armpits, between the legs and around the eyes), would become blind and in a constant state of weeping, would be in so much pain they needed to be strapped down, would lose their voice until they could barely talk above a whisper, and in the end they would choke to death because the mosterd gas had slowly eaten away all lung tissue.
> 
> If you look at Eggsy's reactions to the gas exercise, you'll notice that he is constantly checking himself for syptoms of mustard gas or of its treatment. Whereas the lost eye is the trigger for Harry's improved memory, I have made his reaction to the exercise his memory trigger. I haven't written it explicitly, but it should still be in there.


End file.
